Distance learning or mobile learning programs commonly incorporate lesson materials into media content presentations to reach users (clients, students, etc.) via audio and/or visual display components of the user's personal electronic devices (mobile phones, tablets, e-readers and other handheld computerized devices; graphical user interface (GUI) displays driven by personal computers, clients or laptops; MP3, podcast and other audio players; etc.). Examples of media content presentations include audio content presentations (sound recordings of lectures, spoken word, live event sound recordings, sound effects, music, etc.); visual content presentations (still and moving graphic images, video and film recordings of live performances and events, animated depiction of graphic elements and movements, etc.) and audio/visual combinations (videos, movies, and television broadcasts of lectures, speakers, events, etc.) Such media content presentations may be live (in real-time), or they may be recorded and thereby repetitively listened to or viewed by a student user as often as needed or desired, and at any time of day or night convenient to the user.
During media content-based learning activity presentations, a user (viewer, listener, etc.) may need additional clarification of some aspect of the presented content in order to learn, understand or utilize the content, for example have a question that needs a satisfactory answer before concepts conveyed to the user by the media content are understood by the user. Accordingly, the user may stop and repeat or replay some portion of the media content, or pause a presentation while discussing or researching some aspect of the content, to gain more understanding, before resuming the content presentation. The user may also pause or repeat portions of the presentation to take notes upon or somehow annotate the content during the content presentation, in order to better assimilate the content conveyed or to later use the material is some application.
User-initiated interruptions and repetitions in media content presentations necessary for the comprehension of concepts conveyed to the user may be difficult to execute by the user without disrupting the focus and attention of the user, including the user's ability to follow a narrative or other organizing structure of the content presentation. The time (and efforts) expended by the user in pausing or selecting and repeating portions of the content repetition also adds to a total time and energy expended by the user to observe and assimilate the presented media content, thereby proportionately reducing the efficiencies that may be obtained through such presentations relative to live, in-class instruction.